Effects of Sentiment Inconsistency of Online Composite Reviews on Product Sales: Based on the Perspective of Cue Diagnosticity Theory

Hang Chen; Lingzhao Deng; Jie Lou

doi:10.6981/FEM.202412_5(12).0011

Authors

Hang Chen
Lingzhao Deng
Jie Lou

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6981/FEM.202412_5(12).0011

Keywords:

Online Composite Reviews; Sentiment Inconsistency; Cue Diagnosticity Theory; Product Sales.

Abstract

Unlike single reviews, composite reviews encompass the comprehensive experiences and attitudes of consumers after purchasing and using a product. The impact of the sentiment shifts within these composite reviews on potential consumers' purchasing decisions remains unknown. Based on the cue diagnosticity theory, this study investigates the effect of sentiment inconsistency in composite reviews on product sales and further explores the moderating effects of review volume and price discounts. Using a dataset of real transactions and consumer reviews from a leading online apparel retailer in China, this study quantifies the sentiment inconsistency in composite reviews using support vector machine model and empirically tested the hypotheses. The results indicate that sentiment inconsistency in composite reviews has a significant negative impact on product sales. The higher the degree of sentiment inconsistency, the lower the product sales. Furthermore, the product review volume and price discounts rate moderate this effect. Specifically, an increase in the review volume further amplifies the negative impact, whereas an increase in product price discounts rete can effectively mitigate this negative impact.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

[1] Aghakhani, N., Oh, O., Gregg, D. G. and Karimi, J., 2021, "Online Review Consistency Matters: An Elaboration Likelihood Model Perspective", Information Systems Frontiers, vol.23(5), pp.1287~1301.

[2] Ahn, Y., & Lee, J. (2024). The Impact of Online Reviews on Consumers’ Purchase Intentions: Examining the Social Influence of Online Reviews, Group Similarity, and Self-Construal Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (19, pp. 1060-1078).

[3] Akdeniz, B., Calantone, R. J. and Voorhees, C. M., 2013, "Effectiveness of Marketing Cues On Consumer Perceptions of Quality: The Moderating Roles of Brand Reputation and Third-Party Information", Psychology & Marketing, vol.30(1), pp.76~89.

[4] Ba, S., Jin, Y., Li, X. and Lu, X., 2020, "One Size Fits All? The Differential Impact of Online Reviews and Coupons", Production and Operations Management, vol.29(10), pp.2403~2424.

[5] Carlson, J. R. and Kukar-Kinney, M., 2018, "Investigating Discounting of Discounts in an Online Context: The Mediating Effect of Discount Credibility and Moderating Effect of Online Daily Deal Promotions", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.41, pp.153~160.

[6] Chang, S., Lin, T. M. Y. and Luarn, P., 2014, "The Effects of Word-of-Mouth Consistency On Persuasiveness", Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration, vol.2(31), pp.128~141.

[7] Chen, S. S., Monroe, K. B. and Lou, Y., 1998, "The Effects of Framing Price Promotion Messages On Consumers' Perceptions and Purchase Intentions", Journal of Retailing, vol.74(3), pp.353~372.

[8] Chong, A. Y. L., Li, B., Ngai, E. W. T., Ch'Ng, E. and Lee, F., 2016, "Predicting Online Product Sales Via Online Reviews, Sentiments, and Promotion Strategies", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol.36(4), pp.358~383.

[9] Fan, Z., Che, Y. and Chen, Z., 2017, "Product Sales Forecasting Using Online Reviews and Historical Sales Data: A Method Combining the Bass Model and Sentiment Analysis", Journal of Business Research, vol.74, pp.90~100.

[10] Fernandes, S., Panda, R., Venkatesh, V. G., Swar, B. N. and Shi, Y., 2022, "Measuring the Impact of Online Reviews On Consumer Purchase Decisions–a Scale Development Study", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.68, p.103066.

[11] Floyd, K., Freling, R., Alhoqail, S., Cho, H. Y. and Freling, T., 2014, "How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-Analysis", Journal of Retailing, vol.90(2), pp.217~232.

[12] Gao, F. and Su, X., 2016, "Online and Offline Information for Omnichannel Retailing", Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, vol.19(1), pp.84~98.

[13] Hu, C..and Ning C., 2017 , "When Is the Perceived Usefulness of Online Additional Reviews Greater than the Initial Reviews? Based on an Analysis of Moderating Effects of Temporal Distance and Product Types", FORECASTING, 36(4), pp.36~42.

[14] Huang, G. and Korfiatis, N., 2015, "Trying Before Buying: The Moderating Role of Online Reviews in Trial Attitude Formation Toward Mobile Applications", International Journal of Electronic Commerce, vol.19(4), pp.77~111.

[15] Kakaria, S., Simonetti, A. and Bigné, E., 2023, "Interaction Between Extrinsic and Intrinsic Online Review Cues: Perspectives From Cue Utilization Theory", Electronic Commerce Research.

[16] Kay Byun, K., Ma, M., Kim, K. and Kang, T., 2021, "Buying a New Product with Inconsistent Product Reviews From Multiple Sources: The Role of Information Diagnosticity and Advertising", Journal of Interactive Marketing, vol.55, pp.81~103.

[17] Kaur, K., & Singh, T. (2021). Impact of Online Consumer Reviews on Amazon Books Sales: Empirical Evidence from India Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (16, pp. 2793-2807). (Reprinted.

[18] Kim, R. Y., 2021, "When Does Online Review Matter to Consumers? The Effect of Product Quality Information Cues", Electronic Commerce Research, vol.21(4), pp.1011~1030.

[19] Langan, R., Besharat, A. and Varki, S., 2017, "The Effect of Review Valence and Variance On Product Evaluations: An Examination of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Cues", International Journal of Research in Marketing, vol.34(2), pp.414~429.

[20] Lee, L. and Tsai, C. I., 2014, "How Price Promotions Influence Postpurchase Consumption Experience Over Time", Journal of Consumer Research, vol.40(5), pp.943~959.

[21] Li, Q., and Ren, X., 2017, "Research on How Conflictive Additional Reviews Affect Perceived Helpfulness", Journal of Management Science, 30(4), pp.139~150.

[22] Li, X., 2018, "Impact of Average Rating On Social Media Endorsement: The Moderating Role of Rating Dispersion and Discount Threshold", Information Systems Research, vol.29(3), pp.739~754.

[23] Li, X., Wu, C. and Mai, F., 2019, "The Effect of Online Reviews On Product Sales: A Joint Sentiment-Topic Analysis", Information & Management, vol.56(2), pp.172~184.

[24] Li, Y., Li, G., Tayi, G. K. and Cheng, T. C. E., 2019, "Omni-Channel Retailing: Do Offline Retailers Benefit From Online Reviews?", International Journal of Production Economics, vol.218, pp.43~61.

[25] Liu, H., Wu, S., Zhong, C. and Liu, Y., 2023, "The Effects of Customer Online Reviews On Sales Performance: The Role of Mobile Phone’S Quality Characteristics", Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol.57, p.101229.

[26] Liu, W., & Ji, R. (2018). Examining the Role of Online Reviews in Chinese Online Group Buying Context: The Moderating Effect of Promotional Marketing Social Sciences (7, pp.).

[27] Luo, Y., Li, Y. and Ye, Q., 2022, "Impacts of Online Additional Reviews On the Sales Volume of Cross-Border Pharmaceutical E- Commerce Platforms", Journal of Global Information Technology Management, vol.25(1), pp.83~101.

[28] Moon, S., Kim, S. and Iacobucci, D., 2024, "Dynamic Relationship Changes Between Reviewers and Consumers in Online Product Reviews", Journal of Retailing, vol.100(1), pp.70~84.

[29] Narwal, P. and Nayak, J. K., 2020, "How Consumers Form Product Quality Perceptions in Absence of Fixed Posted Prices: Interaction of Product Cues with Seller Reputation and Third-Party Reviews", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.52, p.101924.

[30] Paget, S., "Local Consumer Review Survey 2023", https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/.

[31] Rokonuzzaman, M., Iyer, P. and Harun, A., 2021, "Return Policy, No Joke: An Investigation Into the Impact of a Retailer's Return Policy On Consumers' Decision Making", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.59, p.102346.

[32] Shi, W., Wang, L., Shen, N., Cai J., 2018, "A Comparative Study into the Impact of Initial and Follow-on Online Comments on Sales", Management Review, 30(1), pp. 144~153.

[33] Srivastava, P. R., Sharma, D. and Kaur, I., 2021, "Differential Effects of Online Signals On Sales Performance of Local Brand Clothing Products", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol.35(6), pp.1522~1547.

[34] Statista, "Share of Internet Users Who Have Purchased Selected Products Online in the Past 12 Months as of 2018".

[35] Tan, H., Akram, U. and Sui, Y., 2019, "An Investigation of the Promotion Effects of Uncertain Level Discount: Evidence From China", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, vol.31(4), pp.957~979.

[36] Tata, S. V., Prashar, S. and Gupta, S., 2020, "An Examination of the Role of Review Valence and Review Source in Varying Consumption Contexts On Purchase Decision", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.52, p.101734.

[37] Topaloglu, O. and Dass, M., 2021, "The Impact of Online Review Content and Linguistic Style Matching On New Product Sales: The Moderating Role of Review Helpfulness", Decision Sciences, vol.52(3), pp.749~775.

[38] Van Ooijen, I., Fransen, M. L., Verlegh, P. W. J. and Smit, E. G., 2017, "Packaging Design as an Implicit Communicator: Effects On Product Quality Inferences in the Presence of Explicit Quality Cues", Food Quality and Preference, vol.62, pp.71~79.

[39] Vittinghoff, E., Glidden, D. V., Shiboski, S. C. and McCulloch, C. E., 2005, Regression Methods in Biostatistics: Linear, Logistic, Survival, and Repeated Measures Models: Springer.

[40] Wang, L., Gao, H. and Zhao, Y., 2023, "Research On Online Shopping Contextual Cues: Refining Classification From Text Mining", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, vol.35(11), pp.2704~2726.

[41] Wang, C., He, B., Wang, K.,2015,"Research on How Additional Review Affects Perceived Usefulness of Review", Journal of Management Science, 28(3), pp.102~114.

[42] Wang, Q. and Chen, H., 2022, "Better Or Worse? Effects of Online Promotion Habits On Customer Value: An Empirical Study", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.68, p.103018.

[43] Wang, Q., Zhang, W., Li, J., Mai, F. and Ma, Z., 2022, "Effect of Online Review Sentiment On Product Sales: The Moderating Role of Review Credibility Perception", Computers in Human Behavior, vol.133, p.107272.

[44] Wang, S., Lim, X., Luo, X. and Cheah, J., 2024, "To Hesitate Or Not to Hesitate: Can Popularity Cues Minimize the Hesitation to Checkout in E-Commerce?", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.78, p.103730.

[45] Wang, Y., Ngai, E. W. T. and Li, K., 2024, "Effects of Sentiment Quantity, Dispersion, and Dissimilarity On Online Review Forwarding Behavior: An Empirical Analysis", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.81, p.103978.

[46] Wang, Y., Tariq, S. and Alvi, T. H., 2021, "How Primary and Supplementary Reviews Affect Consumer Decision Making? Roles of Psychological and Managerial Mechanisms", Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol.46, p.101032.

[47] Wei, L., Ma, S. and Wang, M., 2023, "Understanding the Information Characteristics of Consumers’ Online Reviews: The Evidence From Chinese Online Apparel Shopping", Electronic Commerce Research.

[48] Wen, J., Lin, Z., Liu, X., Xiao, S. H. and Li, Y., 2021, "The Interaction Effects of Online Reviews, Brand, and Price On Consumer Hotel Booking Decision Making", Journal of Travel Research, vol.60(4), pp.846~859.

[49] Yan, L., Xiaojun, F., Li, J. and Dong, X., 2019, "Extrinsic Cues, Perceived Quality, and Purchase Intention for Private Labels", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, vol.31(3), pp.714~727.

[50] Yang, J., Sarathy, R. and Lee, J., 2016, "The Effect of Product Review Balance and Volume On Online Shoppers' Risk Perception and Purchase Intention", Decision Support Systems, vol.89, pp.66~76.

[51] Yin, H., Zheng, S., Yeoh, W. and Ren, J., 2021, "How Online Review Richness Impacts Sales: An Attribute Substitution Perspective", Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, vol.72(7), pp.901~917.

[52] Zhang, Y., Peng, L., Hong, C., 2019, "An Empirical Study on Time-series Correlation Characteristics of Online Users’ Follow-up Review Behaviors: Taking the Mobile Phone Review Data on JD Mall as an Example", Information Studies: Theory & Application, 42(3), pp. 139~145.

[53] Zhao, K., Stylianou, A. C. and Zheng, Y., 2018, "Sources and Impacts of Social Influence From Online Anonymous User Reviews", Information & Management, vol.55(1), pp.16~30.

[54] Zhao, Y., Wen, L., Feng, X., Li, R. and Lin, X., 2020, "How Managerial Responses to Online Reviews Affect Customer Satisfaction: An Empirical Study Based On Additional Reviews", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol.57, p.102205.